Customer Rating: 
Summary: The Price is Not Right for Ludia/UBISoft
Comment: "...and this showcase can be yours if The Price is Right!"
When I heard there was a game in the works, I was excited beyond reason. I immediately found and pre-ordered this game as quickly as I could. The weeks ticked by and finally, the day came when it arrived in my mailbox. I couldn't tear through the wrapping fast enough. Turns out, I should've simply said "Return to Sender" from the very start.
This game, simply put, is HORRIBLY designed.
For LFATs like me (if you don't know what it stands for you aren't one, plain and simple), TPiR is represented by six PGs, two Showcase Showdowns, and the Showcase at the end of the show. Plain and simple. It's fast, it's funny, and it's familiar.
Oh yeah, and it has a host too.
The flow of this game is ridiculous. Aside from the fact that it's got a bunch of slowly scrolling text to represent the prize descriptions and explain the rules--scrolling text you can't speed up--there's a lot of time simply wasted on dissolves where cuts would do, slowing down the game considerably. More than that, you start out in Contestants' Row, where with a brief spiel by the disembodied voice of announcer Rich Fields, to the accompaniment of a grainy, still photo of the prize you're bidding on, you place your bid using the touch stylus.
Whether you in or lose the prize, you find yourself on stage to play a pricing game. If you lose an IUFB, you get a strike (the game operates on a "three strikes, you're out" system) and then play a pricing game regardless. The developers had to make a few minor changes to the gameplay for games such as It's in the Bag (they show you a product and you match a price to it), which is understandable--but what's not understandable is why they scrimped on implementing a physics engine for Plinko so that the chips would fall in a realistic way; as it is, the chips you let loose fall down predetermined paths governed by a simple mathematical formula. I will admit however that it IS nice to see they didn't leave out the sound of the falling chip as it negotiates its way down the board.
After each pricing game, you go straight to the Big Wheel. Lose there, and you're back to Contestants' Row to repeat the whole cycle.
And losing at the wheel is a virtual certainty, since unless you're the final spinner or you get a dollar, it's basically a certainty that you'll get one-upped. Every time I've stayed on 95 cents, someone after me has gotten the dollar. And, in the unlikely event that you stop on the dollar, someone else ALWAYS ties you. And, to add insult to injury, I have NEVER won a spinoff.
I would strongly urge people to buy the PC version, as I just bought that and it's TONS better. Get yours today:
The Price is Right
